by Chris Erik Thomas // Jan. 16, 2026
This article is part of our feature topic Wellness.
A dense mound of soil has risen from the glossy floorboards of the Guggenheim Bilbao. Framed with clean lines, not a speck of dirt out of place, this site-specific installation—Delcy Morelos’ ‘Witch (Sorgin)’—looks like a puzzle piece: a small slice of the natural world, precision-cut and transferred to the austere gallery space; the tons of dirt propped upon a base of reclaimed wood and gently sloping up a wall. For a few brief months, her monumental work coexists with over 100 other pieces by nearly 50 artists and collectives in the ambitious new exhibition ‘Arts of the Earth,’ curated by Manuel Cirauqui. Through its excavation of more than six decades of soil-based art, the show builds a narrative of wellness on a global scale, positioning health and sustainability as communal, ongoing processes.
Delcy Morelos: ‘Witch (Sorgin),’ 2025, dirt and mud on wooden structure, dimensions variable // Courtesy Delcy Morelos & Marian Goodman Gallery, © Delcy Morelos, Bilbao, 2025
With ‘Arts of the Earth,’ this eco-consciousness extends past the works on view, flowing into every facet of the show’s staging: all signage and furnishings were made from compostable or recyclable materials, every piece of art was transported by boat or train to avoid carbon-intensive flights and works were reconstructed, recreated and reactivated using local materials—down to the mud of the Nervión River just outside the museum. These stringent sustainability practices weren’t just a one-off exercise in virtue signaling for the sake of this earth art-focused exhibition; the entire museum has spent several years inching toward carbon-neutrality, mirroring the show’s durational outlook on reparative labor.
Hans Haacke: ‘Directed Growth,’ 1970–72, beans, earth, and twine, dimensions variable // Courtesy the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, © Hans Haacke, VEGAP, Bilbao, 2025
This green philosophy is most powerfully realized in a section of the show housing Morelos’ earthen mound, alongside other environmentally sensitive works. Partitioned by bioplastic flaps that were lab-grown and pressure-tested by the Basque BioDesign Center for over a year, galleries 206 and 207 have become a creative microhabitat with exacting protocols for light, temperature and humidity. The planet’s fragile ecosystem becomes almost a novelty in this setting, as Morelos’ soil-based piece produces a palpable dampness in the room. The scent of wet earth and spices extracted from medicinal plants lingers, as wispy green shoots sprout from the burnt-umber soil. Within the configuration of the show, these unintentional saplings are like an amuse-bouche, proving a palatable first taste before ‘Root Sequence. Mother Tongue,’ American-Pakistani artist Asad Raza’s buffet of trees, one room over.
Asad Raza: ‘Root Sequence. Mother Tongue,’ installation view ‘Arts of the Earth’ at Guggenheim Bilbao // Courtesy the artist, © Asad Raza, © Guggenheim Bilbao
“It’s a forest that is temporarily a sculpture,” Raza explained during a press preview, standing amidst the 26 species he’d sourced from the surrounding countryside’s gardening suppliers (which will be replanted together post-show). Stripped of their natural context, here they’ve been positioned on a striking red carpet repurposed from the San Sebastian Film Festival—elevating nature to temporary celebrity status. Though Raza has staged this same concept multiple times since the 2017 Whitney Biennial, and Morelos has had an earth installation at Berlin’s Hamburger Bahnhof for months, these signature works are elevated here by fresh dialogue with other botanical compositions in the space.
Isa Melsheimer: ‘Wardian Case,’ 2023, glass, potting soil, seeds, plants, dimensions variable, installation view at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao // Courtesy the artist and Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, © Isa Melsheimer, Bilbao 2025
There is German artist Isa Melsheimer’s ‘Wardian Case’ (2023) series, comprising cubic glass greenhouses dense with vegetation grown from seeds she collected, plus two minimalist sculptures by environmental art pioneers: Hans Haacke’s kinetic ‘Grass Grows,’ a cone of dirt first executed in 1969, and Meg Webster’s ‘Volume for Lying Flat’ (2016), a mossy rectangle bound in galvanized steel wire mesh. In this climate-controlled sanctum, earth art reaches its most literal (and humid), as these living works grow under the guardianship of the artists and institution.
Meg Webster: ‘Volume for Lying Flat,’ 2016, peat moss, green moss, soil, and galvanized steel wire mesh, 55.9 x 149.9 x 207 cm // Courtesy the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York, © Meg Webster, Bilbao, 2025
Caretaking as a relational bond forms a throughline in the show. “‘Arts of the Earth’ emphasizes collaboration, both amongst humans and also within other [systems], be they organic or inorganic. The world is a very, very complex organism,” noted Cirauqui, highlighting the restorative weaving practice of the indigenous textile artist Claudia Alarcón and the wider community of Argentine Wichí women in the Unión Textiles Semillas collective. “They view the work as an expression of their collaboration with the plants and with Mother Earth,” he explained. “They learn, they sing, they eat the plants they cook in the fire, where the smoke is used to cure the fibers so they don’t rot. That level of collaboration is extremely rich and pure.”
Frederick Ebenezer Okai: ‘Butterfly I,’ 2022, earthenware vessels, welded wire mesh, light, kiln-fired firewood, 299.7 x 386.1 x 137.2 cm // Courtesy the artist, © Frederick Ebenezer Okai, Bilbao 2025
The emphasis on inherited ancestral wisdom carries into the work of Ghanaian ceramicist Frederick Ebenezer Okai, whose practice explores the role of clay and soil. Specifically, he has worked to highlight the indigenous techniques of women ceramicists from villages across his country, from the way they search for and cook clay to the types of pots they make and the kilns they build. In ‘Arts of the Earth,’ Okai presents the standout piece ‘Butterfly I’ (2022), encasing a series of earthenware vessels with thick, sutured scars in a protective wire-mesh frame—their kiln-roasted forms becoming allegories for preservation and repair.
This essence of remediation flows into ‘Revival Field,’ a long-running ecological work by pioneering conceptual artist Mel Chin in collaboration with agronomist Dr. Rufus Chaney. First taking shape in the early 1990s, the project aimed to introduce “hyperaccumulator” plants, capable of extracting heavy metals from polluted soil, into the Pig’s Eye Landfill in St. Paul, Minnesota. Over the years, as the contaminating bits of cadmium, zinc and nickel were pulled from the earth, they became new materials, ready to be reused. In the field of Land Art, where incisive interventions left scars and marks on the landscape, Chin’s art was made for continuous healing.
Mel Chin: ‘Revival Field,’ 1991-ongoing, photo documentation, plants, industrial fencing on a hazardous waste landfill, an ongoing project in conjunction with Dr. Rufus Chaney, senior research agronomist, USDA // Courtesy the artist, © Mel Chin, Bilbao 2025
The date of Chin’s ‘Revival Field’ is listed as “1991-ongoing” and includes a new work in the series, ‘Revival Field Accumulation and Process Study,’ which highlights three of the toxin-sucking plants: Thlaspi, Silene and Zea mais. This new piece, literally made in the gallery as the show was being staged, embodies the sense of continuation that forms the core of ‘Arts of the Earth.’ There’s no magic pill for instant wellness here, no reset button to be pressed. The natural materials at work—grass, soil, wood, clay, wool, trees, leaves—become tools of expression and collaborative care. This healing doesn’t emerge cleanly; it carries the scars of extractive human activity and the weight of endlessly unresolved labor. As Cirauqui notes, “If we want to attain wellness, we should not fool ourselves with taking the easiest path possible. We should accept the difficulties that will lead us there.”
Exhibition Info
Guggenheim Bilbao
Group Show: ‘Arts of the Earth’
Exhibition: Dec. 5, 2025-May 3, 2026
guggenheim-bilbao.eus
Abandoibarra Etorb., 2, Abando, 48009 Bilbao, Bizkaia, Spain, click here for map
